Publications: Weapons Cleanup Monitor

A storage tank spoiled a batch of liquid radioactive waste at the Hanford Site that was thought to be clean enough for disposal, according to a contractor memo seen by the Exchange Monitor. The waste from Hanford’s tank farm, part of a less-radioactive tranche that is supposed to be solidified starting in 2025 by the […]

The legacy cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said recently it has completed the multi-million-dollar remediation of Middle DP Road in Los Alamos County. Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) said late last month that recent sampling confirmed “contamination removal and cleanup is complete,” according to […]

Jacobs’ government contracting segment, which is up for sale, accounted for 42% of the entire company’s business in fiscal year 2022, according to a recent investor presentation. Another Department of Energy weapons complex contractor, Amentum, is reportedly in the running to acquire Jacobs’ contracting business. There are at least two other suitors in the running, […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Wednesday it will not lump together litigation over a Department of Energy liquid waste contract potentially worth $45 billion with a separate government procurement case. In a brief order, the appeals circuit rejected a joint motion by BWX-Technologies-led Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure and […]

A federal district court in Ohio has assigned a Columbus attorney to act as mediator in a wrongful death lawsuit brought against current and former contractors at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site. John Camillus was assigned Oct. 2 to be mediator in the case, surrounding the death of a 13-year-old Piketon, Ohio boy, Braden […]

A documentary film about Richland, Wash., and the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, which debuted during June at the famous Tribeca Film Festival in New York, is about to get screen time in Washington state. Richland is “a town that produced weapons-grade plutonium for decades, and its citizens have pridefully embraced their identity,” according to […]

The Department of Energy awarded North Wind Portage a nine-month, $1.9-million extension to continue various environmental chores at the DOE-controlled portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California, according to a recent procurement notice. Following the mid-September extension, the company’s current task order is now valued at $66.4-million. Without the extension, North Wind’s work […]

The Department of Energy is taking public comment between now and Nov. 10 on environmental remediation plans for the Hanford Site in Washington state over five years, between fiscal 2024 and 2028, according to a Tuesday news release. A hybrid public meeting to gather more public feedback is slated for Oct. 24 at 5:30 p.m. […]

The Department of Energy and its New Mexico regulator could be close to reaching a deal to replace the 2016 Compliance Order on Consent that governs most cleanup at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to a federal court filing this week. The parties Tuesday sought and received an extension from a federal judge in […]

The Department of Energy Cleanup to Clean Energy Program will hold its second industry day at a DOE nuclear site, this time at the Idaho National Laboratory on Oct. 25. While the notice shared by DOE does not yet list an exact meeting time, the day-long session is scheduled for the Idaho National Laboratory’s meeting […]

Christopher Roscetti, the former technical director for the government’s independent nuclear safety watchdog, is now the Department of Energy’s deputy director for environmental health and safety, according to a DOE website.  Roscetti, a career civil servant, assumed the No. 2 post for DOE’s Office of Environment, Health, Safety, and Security in July after serving more […]

The Department of Energy and its environmental contractor broke ground last week on a major new expansion to more than double the capacity of the low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Idaho National Laboratory. The current 390,000 cubic meters of capacity at the Idaho Comprehensive Disposal Facility is 80% filled, DOE said in a Tuesday […]

About 30 companies, many better known for electric generation than work around the weapons complex, took part in the Department of Energy’s Cleanup to Clean Energy day at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to data posted after the Sept. 22 gathering. Some of the big names include Shell, Next Era Energy, which describes […]

About three dozen businesses turned out Sept. 21-22 to learn about the potential $3 billion contract for Phase 1B of Department of Energy cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state, according to online documents. While the big crowd included plenty of the usual names around the weapons complex, one curiously absent […]

The New Mexico Environment Department this week approved 10 more years of operation for the nation’s only deep underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste. The order was issued Wednesday authorizing renewal of the state’s hazardous waste facility permit for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The document was signed by Michelle […]

The Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico is not planning to add any treatment capabilities for problem shipments of transuranic waste arriving at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a federal manager said Tuesday. “We don’t have any measures in our permit, we are not a treatment facility,” said Ken Princen, assistant manager […]

A mainstay within the Department of Energy’s weapons complex along with two private equity firms are in the running to land Jacobs’ multi-billion-dollar government contracting branch, Reuters reported this week. The news service reported Wednesday Virginia-based Amentum along with two financial firms, Veritas Capital and Platinum Equity, are seeking to acquire the Critical Mission Solutions […]

A flub with its corporate registration should not void one of the largest awards in the history of nuclear-weapons cleanup, the joint venture that won the contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state said this week in a court filing. BWX Technologies (BWXT)-led Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure filed a 120-page-plus brief, which […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by curtailing coal-burning, buying more electric vehicles and curbing business travel, according to a recent environmental report. Ameresco Federal Solutions operates an on-site cogeneration power plant that uses biomass such as wood chips to supply steam and eliminate the […]

In a follow-up to prior reports, the Government Accountability Office said again Friday that using concrete-like grout would be a cheaper way to solidify the less-radioactive tank waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The Savannah River Site in South Carolina has treated 4 million gallons of its radioactive salt waste […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear remediation office should draft clearer guidance to differentiate contractor work that directly advances cleanup from other chores, the Government Accountability Office said in a report published Monday. Until it does, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) lacks a clear understanding of how much of its multi-billion-dollar budget directly hastens cleanup, […]

A federal district judge in Idaho has penciled in an Oct. 30 hearing date to consider the U.S. government’s motion to throw out Butte County’s lawsuit against the Department of Energy. The case, scheduled for 11 a.m. Mountain Time at the Pocatello, Idaho federal courthouse, will be presided over by U.S. District Court Judge David […]

The Department of Energy Waste Isolation Pilot Plant received 473 shipments of transuranic waste during fiscal 2023, the most in about a decade, a DOE manager said Tuesday during a public meeting in New Mexico. The 473 shipments for the 12 months ended Sept. 30 is the most since before February 2014 when an underground […]

The Department of Energy has extended through January existing contracts for environmental cleanup and depleted uranium work at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. The contracts for both Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, which handles decontamination and decommissioning, and Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services, which does the depleted uranium work, will now run through […]

Still deadlocked over whether to spend the maximum allowed by a law passed this spring, Congress on Friday still had not passed a bill to keep federal agencies open in the new government fiscal year that begins Sunday. On Friday, even before it failed by a 198-232 vote to pass in the chamber in which […]

New Mexicans who took part in a hybrid public meeting Friday, largely expressed support for a new state permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant while urging the New Mexico Environment Department to be vigilant in monitoring Department of Energy compliance. Too often from 2011 through 2018, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) managers under […]

North Wind Group has appointed Shayne Naugle as the new North Wind Services president, although there is no word yet on a successor to the parent company’s CEO Christopher Leichtweis, who announced plans to step down this year. North Wind announced the promotion of Naugle, who previously led the company’s Northeast operations, to president of […]